Page tags

Add a new page

Angie Edwards
February 17, 2008
Funding For Athletics in Iowa
It is important for kids of all ages to get involved in athletics for many reasons. Some reasons for kids getting involved being, to stay physically active, to meet new people, to interact with other kids their age, and most of all to have fun (Remington, 2006). While doing all this, these kids also need to be informed on the possible risk of injuries they may also face in the future. Kids won’t be able to do either though unless there is proper funding. I’m addressing the state of Iowa to ask merely for an extra 5 million dollars to help get some youth athletics set up for children in Iowa. And also to help inform children of the possible injuries they may face, not just due to the contact that may occur during the activity but also because of structural makeup of their body.
Currently there is 27 million dollars being put forth for athletics for sports in Iowa (Pounds, 2005). But this money is going mostly to college sports (Pounds, 2005). Although I agree that colleges need funding as well they also bring in the most income from sports due to selling tickets, concession stands, raffles, and other money raising events (Pounds, 2005). So if they just recycled their money back into their athletics we could also take some of the money given to them and put it towards youth sports. It’s said that the more involved in sports a child is the more likely they are to be successful (Charlotte Martin Foundation, 2000). Sports not only teach kids how to play a game and how to win it teaches them a healthy life style, promotes self esteem, helps learn goal setting, learn and experience teamwork, learn time management, learn to deal with adversity, but most of all just to have fun (Mahoe, 2008). Kids cannot do this if there is no money to pay for everything needed to get these things started and to keep them running. That is why we need to put more money into these kinds of activities for the sake of the upcoming generations.
Being physically active is very important in helping prevent tearing your ACL. While it is very common to tear your ACL in any sport girls should be a little more well informed about this than boys due to the fact that they have an eight to two more likely to tear their ACL in the same sports as boys do (Dwyer, 2001). While the exact reasons for this is unsure they assume that estrogen and genetic makeup plays a role in this (Coggin). Informing girls of this is very important before they get involved not to try and scare them away from sports, but just so they know what can happen and they know what they can do to help prevent such an injury.
There are many individual organizations that put thousands of dollars into supporting youth activity such as Liberty Mutual (US Youth Soccer 2008). Many organization and companies put money into these kinds of organizations to see kids get involved and get away from the street life and getting into trouble.
The money that we will be using for this will go to many different aspects to make things possible. It will go into payment for the people needed to help make it possible such as coaches and referees. Although a lot of these people may also be volunteers some money may need to go towards this. Coaches are one thing that plays a major role in making this all possible and good coaches can make this a positive experience for children and sometimes good coaching requires training which in return may require some sort of classes (Charlotte Martin Foundation, 2008).
Money will also go to reserve the land needed to play the sports. So if it is a basketball group that gets started they are going to need time on courts. If its flag football they are going to need a practice field. More of the money will go to the equipment needed to make it possible. A lot of the children that get involved in these activities won’t have the hundred dollars or more needed for the proper equipment.
These activities can bring in money by charging at concession stands for snacks and admission to get into the game maybe but that isn’t nearly enough to keep the activities afloat on their own. And the main goal here isn’t to earn money it is to help kids get physically active and have fun in their youth.
The money will also go to simple class time reservation so that teachers can sit down with children and let them know about the possible injuries they may face. And also inform them on the actions that they could take to help prevent these occurrences. A small amount of this money could go to asking speakers to come and talk to the kids that this may have happened to and let them tell the children their story. Although their maybe a lot of volunteers that would do this, that is why only a very small portion would go towards this. Girls, although very young, will also be allowed to sit threw a class where they learn the importance of monitoring their menstrual cycle since it is most ACL injuries most commonly happen during the ovulation period of their cycle (Wojtys, 2002).
In conclusion I am addressing the state of Iowa to supply more funding for the development of Youth athletics and so children can be better informed on the risk they may face when participating in sports and what they may be able to do to help prevent these injuries from happening. There is already a good amount of money being put into athletics in Iowa but the bulk of this money is going to college athletics. I propose that we allow college athletics to support themselves on a simple level with little help from the state and use some of this money to get more children involved in extracurricular activities. All the money that is being asked for will be but to great use and will make many children happy and keep them away from disruptive activity.